The Story

During the last week of every year, we use lightly peated barley in our whisky production here at the Tomatin Distillery. This spirit, just 60,000 litres per annum is then filled into 1st fill ex-Bourbon, ex-Sherry and Virgin Oak casks and, when matured, will be bottled as Cù Bòcan.

"Why 'Cù Bòcan'?" we hear you ask...

Cù Bòcan has stalked residents of the remote Highland village of Tomatin for centuries, his legend embellished by the hellhound's increasingly fractious behaviour.

Sightings are rare, once in a generation, always terrifying. A distillery worker, out walking late, was once relentlessly pursued by an imposing black beast, steam spiralling from flared nostrils, teeth bared.

Compelled beyond all natural reason to feel the hound's dense fur he stopped and reached out, hand trembling, only to see the ghostly spectre - Cù Bòcan - dissolve before his eyes leaving nothing but a vacuum of deathly silence and an inky blue cloud of smoke, soon spirited away across the peat moorland…